28/11/2008

When someone told me that Sufi Night was held in the equivalent of a mosh pit (the crowded chaos at the front of a gig where everyone is squashed in and bounces around together) I didn't really believe them. But they were completely correct, it was absolute madness and a brilliant night.

Music from the night: Click preview to play it on this page

There were maybe 500 people crowded into an open area between some buildings and a Sufi shrine, all sat next to each other closer than I could have imagined people could sit. Thursdays are also tourist night, so there is an area that we are led to, obviously full of people who had a good seat, who now have to be aggressively kicked out of the area and threatened with sticks to make them move. It doesn't help that everyone in the whole room is smoking huge joints and isn't inclined to move. Half the crowd is in a trance, the rest are passing around joints like there's no tomorrow.

The 50 Pakistanis's who were sitting on the steps of the shrine in the tourist area were replaced by about 10 tourists all staying at Malik's guest house - 'The Regal Internet Inn'. He's well respected and his helper Niemet also did his best to make sure we were all OK. All over Lahore if we said we were staying with Malik people said he was a very good man and touched their heart, everyone saw him as their friend. The reason for all this chaos were the three drummers stood with huge drums, swirling around like dervishes (the original dervishes were the first Sufis) playing amazing rhythms and spinning on the spot while they did it. The most famous one is deaf (blue clothing) and can still keep time from all the vibrations.

We stayed for about 4 hours and went home elated from the experience, if the first people to play acid house weren't inspired by Lahore's Sufi night I will be amazed. What made it even more strange was the transvestite's who regularly walked through the crowd and went into the shrines and then prayed for half an hour or so, while the music was going on. In such a crazy macho man world it seemed so incongruous to see 'gay men' dressed as women being able to walk around openly. Some are eunochs and live a very secretive life that William Dalrymple managed to find out a little about in 'City of Djinn's', they are respected and feared in Pakistan and India, yet are thought to bring good luck...........

27/11/2008

Anyone who watched Michael Palin's 'Himalaya' will have seen the crazy border ceremony between Pakistan and India but nothing really prepares you for the spectacle of it.

On Sundays especially, thousands of people travel the 30km from Lahore (Pakistan) and Amritsar (India) to attend. It is like going to a football match...walking towards the stadium with announcements and the buzz of so many people all attending one event.

The whole nationalistic spectacle makes you laugh, smile, groan and despair...all in equal measure. It's great theatre, watching the crowd is almost as good as watching the stars - the soldiers. Two sets of people divided by a line that none of them would have chosen, shouting 'Pakistan....Super Power'!! and chanting at the Indian crowd behind a small dividing gate.

19/11/2008

On the way into Rawalpindi from Islamabad, we got stopped at some traffic lights by a reporter and his photographer. We pulled in and were then interviewed while a load of people gathered around to watch.

The next day we were in the paper and virtually our whole story was made up. The only thing they got right was our names and the fact that we started in Mongolia.

We were never scared, we never had 4 punctures. Don't believe what you read in the papers. Be a critical thinker!!!

Today we got asked to sign the article by the hotel owner who has mounted it on the wall in his office. Then another couple of local people came to see us and asked for us to sign their copy too. It was a bit embarassing, but very funny.

07/11/2008

All the way from Gilgit we have been constantly harassed in the nicest possible way by the lovely people on the side of the road wanting us to stop for 'Chai' (tea), to take their photograph, to sit and talk to them, to give them 'one pen, one pen', or more annoyingly to walk beside us and stare as we labour up a steep hill, struggling to go in a straight line and to get enough oxygen into our lungs.

We can hardly blame them, not many tourists come this way and any that do are packed inside the NATCO bus or in Jeeps insulated from the people in the villages. We are today's entertainment. If anyone wants to practice their English, we're a great opportunity...
'Hello, How are you?'; 'What is your name?'; What is your religion?'; What is your village name?'; 'Photo,photo, photo?'; 'Green Chilli!' (all that one little boy could say in English)

We would often meet large groups of children walking huge distances to get home from school, anxious to interact with the strange foreigners and their loaded bicycles. Some were shy, others desperate to show off their English skills. Many of the children go to Government schools, (8 Rupees/month – $0.1) but others are lucky enough to go to the Aga Khan English Medium Schools (350R/month - $5) and speak superb English for their age.

Because some of Northern Areas isn't officially part of Pakistan, but part of the disputed Kashmir, the local people rely on the Aga Khan to build bridges, schools and medical centres, put pipes in for drinking water and build irrigation channels, as they receive very little from the Pakistani government. His picture is everywhere and the prowess in English of so many of the children is testament to the success of his many schemes in the area. Amazingly his schools are also co-educational which may help explain the more relaxed relationships between men and women in the countryside.

Women would frequently talk to us and many spoke better English than their husbands, and it was almost liberating to see them walking alone and unveiled, shaking hands with men from their village, something we would never see in towns.

Many people wanted us to take their pictures and then send them copies when we reached a larger town, our notebook is now full of addresses. Some people wouldn't even want the photos sent to them, they just wanted the interaction and to see themselves on the screen of our cameras. Often if we stopped to take a picture of something, groups of men would line up beside it to add interest, or ask for us to take photographs of the whole family. Children nearly always got really excited as we arrived, and thanks to well intentioned NGOs, we would hear the chant of 'pen, pen, pen, pen' echoing round the terraces above us.

One other thing that amazed us was the number of children with pale skin and red hair, and others with amazingly blue eyes, so unlike the rest of the population of Pakistan.

02/11/2008

All trucks in Pakistan are decorated like this and everyone decorates even their motorbikes and tractors. We've heard about a street in Lahore where you can get your pushbike decorated. im still trying to make up my mind whether to get mine done:

This post is for Ari in New Zealand. Hi from Simon and Isabelle.
Did you get our postcard?

01/11/2008

We were lucky enough to be in Gilgit during the annual Gilgit Polo competition.

With so many military and police in the towns of the Northern Areas there are lots of well organised teams that enter this annual competition. It lasts for one week from November the 1st and as tourists we got to sit in the VIP section to watch the opening ceremony and the first exhibition game between the Gilgit Police B team and the Gilgit Scouts B team.

Every town in the Northern areas has a Polo ground which consists of a long thin field surrounded by high walls an banked concrete seating or steps.

The whole atmosphere was fantastic and involved musicians, singers, dancers, flag carrying, each team parading past the VIP guests (us), lots of saluting and also during the game quite a bit of angry appealing to the umpire concerning the rules.

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Dec 2016 - January 2017600km from Taipei, Taiwan, across the Central Mountains, up to Lishan and down the Takoro Gorge to the East Coast. No problems

July 2016 - August 20161,500km from Chengdu, China, up north to Songpan, west into Eastern Tibet through Aba, Ganzi and back to Chengdu via Kangding. Mainly between 3000m and 4500m above sea level. 3 punctures

June 2015 - August 20152,100km from Seattle,US. Anticlockwise around the Olympic Peninsula, down and along the Columbia river to Portland, before heading east and north through the Cascade mountains all the way back up to Vancouver in Canada, pulling a trailer containing our now 2 year old son. 2 punctures.

Dec 2013 - April 2014 3,284km from Santiago in Chile, down south along the Carretera Austral and then back up through Argentina pulling a trailer containing our 1 year old son. One broken wheel rim, replaced front chain-rings, 4 punctures, split rim tape, new chain.

June 2013 - August 2013 2,057 km from Stavanger in Norway, up to Tromsø via the Lofoten Islands, pulling a trailer containing our 6 month old son Leo. 1 puncture.

June 2012 - August 2012 4,245 km from Croatia to Norway via Albania and Macedonia. Good roads most of the way, no punctures. Isabelle 6 months pregnant at the start.